THE ORIENTAL
America, midway between Europe and Asia, was destined to be the
meeting-ground of Occident and Orient. It was in the exciting days of
'49 that gold became the lodestone to draw to California men from the
oriental lands across the Pacific. The Chinese for the moment overcame
their religious aversion to leaving their native haunts and, lured by
the promise of fabulous wages, made their way to the "gold hills." Of
the three hundred thousand who came to America during the three
decades of free entry, the large majority were peasants from the rural
districts in the vicinity of Canton. They were thrifty, independent,
sturdy, honest young men who sought the great adventure unaccompanied
by wife or family. Chinese tradition forbade the respectable woman to
leave her home, even with her husband; and China was so isolated from
the world, so encrusted in her own traditions that out of her
uncounted millions even the paltry thousands of peasants and workmen
who filtered through the port of Canton into the great world were
bound by ancient precedent as firmly as if they had remained at home.
They invariably planned to return to the Celestial Empire and it was
their supreme wish that, if they died abroad, their bodies be buried
in the land of their ancestors.
The Chinaman thus came to America as a workman adventurer, not as a
prospective citizen. He preserved his queue, his pajamas, his
chopsticks, and his joss in the crude and often brutal surroundings of
the mining camp. He maintained that gentle, yielding, unassertive
character which succumbs quietly to pressure at one point, only to
reappear silently and unobtrusively in another place. In the wild
rough and tumble of the camp, where the outlaw and the bully found
congenial refuge, the celestial did not belie his name. He was indeed
of another world, and his capacity for patience, his native dignity
without suspicion of hauteur, baffled the loud self-assertion of the
Irish and the Anglo-Saxon.
During the first years of the gold rush, the Chinaman was welcome in
California because he was necessary. He could do so many things that
the miner disdained or found no time to do. He could cook and wash,
and he could serve. He was a rare gardener and a patient day laborer.
He could learn a new trade quickly. In the city he became a useful
domestic servant at a time when there were very few women. In all his
tasks he was neat and had a genius for noiselessly minding his own
business.
As the number of miners increased, race prejudice asserted itself.
"California for Americans" came to be a slogan that reflected their
feelings against Mexicans, Spanish-Americans, and Chinese in the
mines. Race riots, often instigated by men who had themselves but
recently immigrated to America, were not infrequent. In these
disorders the Chinese were no match for the aggressors and in
consequence were forced out of many good mining claims.
The labor of the cheap and faithful Chinese appealed to the business
instincts of the railroad contractors who were constructing the
Pacific railways and they imported large numbers. In 1866 a line of
steamships was established to run regularly between Hong Kong and San
Francisco. In 1869 the first transcontinental railway was completed
and American laborers from the East began to flock to California,
where they immediately found themselves in competition with the
Mongolian standard of living. Race rivalry soon flared up and the
anti-Chinese sentiment increased as the railroads neared completion
and threw more and more of the oriental laborers into the general
labor market. Chinese were hustled out of towns. Here and there
violence was done. For example, in the Los Angeles riots of October
24, 1871, fifteen Chinamen were hanged and six were shot by the mob.
This prejudice, based primarily upon the Chinaman's willingness to
work long hours for little pay and to live in quarters and upon fare
which an Anglo-Saxon would find impossible, was greatly increased by
his strange garb, language, and customs. The Chinaman remained in
every essential a foreigner. In his various societies he maintained to
some degree the patriarchal government of his native village. He
shunned American courts, avoided the Christian religion, rarely
learned much of the English language, and displayed no desire to
become naturalized. Instead of sympathy in the country of his sojourn
he met discrimination, jealousy, and suspicion. For many years his
testimony was not permitted in the courts. His contact with only the
rough frontier life failed to reveal to him the gentle amenities of
the white man's faith, and everywhere the upper hand seemed turned
against him. So he kept to himself, and this isolation fed the rumors
that were constantly poisoning public opinion. Chinatown in the public
mind became a synonym for a nightmare of filth, gambling,
opium-smoking, and prostitution.
Alarm was spreading among Americans concerning the organizations of
the Chinese in the United States. Of these, the Six Companies were the
most famous. Mary Roberts Coolidge, after long and careful research,
characterized these societies as "the substitute for village and
patriarchal association, and although purely voluntary and benevolent
in their purpose, they became, because of American ignorance and
prejudice, the supposed instruments of tyranny over their
countrymen."[45] They each had a club house, where members were
registered and where lodgings and other accommodations were provided.
The largest in 1877 had a membership of seventy-five thousand; the
smallest, forty-three thousand. The Chinese also maintained trade
guilds similar in purpose to the American trade union. Private or
secret societies also flourished among them, some for good purposes,
others for illicit purposes. Of the latter the Highbinders or Hatchet
Men became the most notorious, for they facilitated the importation of
Chinese prostitutes. Many of these secret societies thrived on
blackmail, and the popular antagonism to the Six Companies was due to
the outrages committed by these criminal associations.
When the American labor unions accumulated partisan power, the Chinese
became a political issue. This was the greatest evil that could befall
them, for now racial persecution received official sanction and passed
out of the hands of mere ruffians into the custody of powerful
political agitators. Under the lurid leadership of Dennis Kearney, the
Workingman's party was organized for the purpose of influencing
legislation and "ridding the country of Chinese cheap labor." Their
goal was "Four dollars a day and roast beef"; and their battle cry,
"The Chinese must go." Under the excitement of sand-lot meetings, the
Chinese were driven under cover. In the riots of July, 1877, in San
Francisco, twenty-five Chinese laundries were burned. "For months
afterward," says Mary Roberts Coolidge, "no Chinaman was safe from
personal outrage even on the main thoroughfares, and the perpetrators
of the abuses were almost never interfered with so long as they did
not molest white men's property."[46]
This anti-Chinese epidemic soon spread to other Western States.
Legislatures and city councils vied with each other in passing laws
and ordinances to satisfy the demands of the labor vote. All manner of
ingenious devices were incorporated into tax laws in an endeavor to
drive the Chinese out of certain occupations and to exclude them from
the State. License and occupation taxes multiplied. The Chinaman was
denied the privilege of citizenship, was excluded from the public
schools, and was not allowed to give testimony in proceedings relating
to white persons. Manifold ordinances were passed intended to harass
and humiliate him: for instance, a San Francisco ordinance required
the hair of all prisoners to be cut within three inches of the scalp.
Most extreme and unreasonable discriminations against hand laundries
were framed. The new California constitution of 1879 endowed the
legislature and the cities with large powers in regulating the
conditions under which Chinese would be tolerated. In 1880 a state law
declared that all corporations operating under a state charter should
be prohibited from employing Chinese under penalty of forfeiting
their charter. Chinese were also excluded from employment in all
public works. Nearly all these laws and ordinances, however, were
ultimately declared to be unconstitutional on account of their
discriminatory character or because they were illegal regulations of
commerce.
The States having failed to exclude the Chinese, the only hope left
was in the action of the Federal Government. The earliest treaties and
trade conventions with China (1844 and 1858) had been silent upon the
rights and privileges of Chinese residing or trading in the United
States. In 1868, Anson Burlingame, who had served for six years as
American Minister to China, but who had now entered the employ of the
Chinese Imperial Government, arrived at the head of a Chinese mission
sent for the purpose of negotiating a new treaty which should insure
reciprocal rights to the Chinese. The journey from San Francisco to
Washington was a sort of triumphal progress and everywhere the Chinese
mission was received with acclaim. The treaty drawn by Secretary
Seward was ratified on July 28, 1868, and was hailed even on the
Pacific coast as the beginning of more fortunate relations between the
two countries. The treaty acknowledged the "inherent and inalienable
right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual
advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and
subjects respectively, from the one country to the other, for purposes
of curiosity, of trade or as permanent residents." It stated
positively that "citizens of the United States visiting or residing in
China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in
respect to travel and residence as may be enjoyed by the citizens of
the most favored nation. And, reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting
or residing in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges,
immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel or residence." The
right to naturalization was by express statement not conferred by the
treaty upon the subjects of either nation dwelling in the territory of
the other. But it was not in any way prohibited.
The applause which greeted this international agreement had hardly
subsided before the anti-Chinese agitators discovered that the treaty
was in their way and they thereupon demanded its modification or
abrogation. They now raised the cry that the Chinese were a threat to
the morals and health of the country, that the majority of Chinese
immigrants were either coolies under contract, criminals, diseased
persons, or prostitutes. As a result, in 1879 a representative from
Nevada, one of the States particularly interested, introduced in
Congress a bill limiting to fifteen the Chinese passengers that any
ship might bring to the United States on a single voyage, and
requiring the captains of such vessels to register at the port of
entry a list of their Chinese passengers. The Senate added an
amendment requesting the President to notify the Chinese Government
that the section of the Burlingame treaty insuring reciprocal
interchange of citizens was abrogated. After a very brief debate the
measure that so flagrantly defied an international treaty passed both
houses. It was promptly vetoed, however, by President Hayes on the
ground that it violated a treaty which a friendly nation had carefully
observed. If the Pacific cities had cause of complaint, the President
preferred to remedy the situation by the "proper course of diplomatic
negotiations."[47]
The President accordingly appointed a commission, under the
chairmanship of James B. Angell, president of the University of
Michigan, to negotiate a new treaty. The commission proceeded to China
and completed its task in November, 1880. The new treaty provided
that, "whenever, in the opinion of the Government of the United
States, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, or their
residence therein, affects or threatens to affect the interests of
that country, or to endanger the good order of the said country or of
any locality within the territory thereof, the Government of China
agrees that the Government of the United States may regulate, limit,
or suspend such coming or residence, but may not absolutely prohibit
it." Other Chinese subjects who had come to the United States, "as
travelers, merchants, or for curiosity," and laborers already in the
United States, were to "be allowed to go and come of their own free
will," with all of the "rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions
which are accorded to the citizens of the most favored nation." The
United States furthermore undertook to protect the Chinese in the
United States against "ill treatment" and to "devise means for their
protection."
Two years after the ratification of this treaty, a bill was introduced
to prohibit the immigration of Chinese labor for twenty years. Both
the great political parties had included the subject in their
platforms in 1880. The Democrats had espoused exclusion and were
committed to "No more Chinese immigration"; the Republicans had
preferred restriction by "just, humane, and reasonable laws." The bill
passed, but President Arthur vetoed it on the ground that prohibiting
immigration for so long a period transcended the provisions of the
treaty. A bill which was then passed shortening the period of the
restriction to ten years received the President's signature, and on
August 5, 1882, America shut the door in the face of Chinese labor.
The law, however, was very loosely drawn and administrative confusion
arose at once. Chinese laborers leaving the United States were
required to obtain a certificate from the collector of customs at the
port of departure entitling them to reëntry. Other Chinese--merchants,
travelers, or visitors--who desired to come to the United States were
required to have a certificate from their Government declaring that
they were entitled to enter under the provisions of the treaty. As
time went on, identification became a joke, trading in certificates a
regular pursuit, and smuggling Chinese across the Canadian border a
profitable business. Moreover, in the light of the law, who was a
"merchant" and who a "visitor"? In 1884 Congress attempted to remedy
these defects of phraseology and administration by carefully framed
definitions and stringent measures.[48] The Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of exclusion as incident to American sovereignty.
Meanwhile in the West the popular feeling against the Chinese refused
to subside. At Rock Springs, Wyoming, twenty-eight Chinese were killed
and fifteen were injured by a mob which also destroyed Chinese
property amounting to $148,000. At Tacoma and Seattle, also, violence
descended upon the Mongolian. In San Francisco a special grand jury
which investigated the operation of the exclusion laws and a committee
of the Board of Supervisors which investigated the condition of
Chinatown both made reports that were violently anti-Chinese. A state
anti-Chinese convention soon thereafter declared that the situation
"had become well-nigh intolerable." So widespread and venomous was the
agitation against Chinese that President Cleveland was impelled to
send to Congress two special messages on the question, detailing the
facts and requesting Congress to pay the Chinese claims for indemnity
which Wyoming refused to honor. The remonstrances of the Chinese
Government led to the drafting of a new treaty in 1888. But while
China was deliberating over this treaty, Congress summarily shut off
any hope for immediate agreement by passing the Scott Act prohibiting
the return of any Chinese laborer after the passage of the act,
stopping the issue of any more certificates of identification, and
declaring void all certificates previously issued. It is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that this brutal political measure was passed
with an eye to the Pacific electoral vote in the pending election. In
the next presidential year the climax of harshness was reached in the
Geary law, which required, within an unreasonably short time, the
registration of all Chinese in the United States. The Chinese, under
legal advice, refused to register until the Federal Supreme Court had
declared the law constitutional. Subsequently the time for
registration was extended.
The anti-Chinese fanaticism had now reached its highest point. While
the Government maintained its policy of exclusion, it modified the
drastic details of the law. In 1894 a new treaty provided for the
exclusion of laborers for ten years, excepting registered laborers who
had either parent, wife, or child in the United States, or who
possessed property or debts to the amount of one thousand dollars. It
required all resident Chinese laborers to register, and the Chinese
Government was similarly entitled to require the registration of all
American laborers resident in China. The treaty made optional the
clause requiring merchants, travelers, and other classes privileged to
come to the United States, to secure a certificate from their
Government vised by the American representative at the port of
departure.
In 1898 General Otis extended the exclusion acts to the Philippines by
military order, owing to the fact that the country was in a state of
war, and Congress extended them to the Hawaiian Islands. In 1904 China
refused to continue the treaty of 1894, and Congress substantially
reenacted the existing laws "in so far as not inconsistent with treaty
obligations." Thus the legal _status quo_ has been maintained, and the
Chinese population in America is gradually decreasing. No new
laborers are permitted to come and those now here go home as old age
overtakes them. But the public has come to recognize that diplomatic
circumlocution cannot conceal the crude and harsh treatment which the
Chinaman has received; that the earlier laws were based upon reports
that greatly exaggerated the evils and were silent upon the virtues of
the Oriental; and that a policy which had its conception in frontier
fears and in race prejudice was sustained by politicians and
perpetuated by demagogues.
Rather suddenly the whole drama of discrimination was re-opened by the
arrival of a considerable number of Japanese laborers in America. In
1900, there were some twenty-four thousand in the United States and a
decade later this number had increased threefold. About one-half of
them lived in California, and the rest were to be found throughout the
West, especially in Washington, Colorado, and Oregon. They were nearly
all unmarried young men of the peasant class. Unlike the Chinese, they
manifested a readiness to conform to American customs and an eagerness
to learn the language and to adopt American dress. The racial gulf,
however, is not bridged by a similarity in externals. The Japanese
possess all the deep and subtle contrasts of mentality and ideality
which differentiate the Orient from the Occident. A few are not averse
to adopting Christianity; many more are free-thinkers; but the bulk
remain loyal to Buddhism. They have reproduced here the compact trade
guilds of Japan. The persistent aggressiveness of the Japanese, their
cunning, their aptitude in taking advantage of critical circumstances
in making bargains, have by contrast partially restored to popular
favor the patient, reliable Chinaman.
At first the Japanese were welcomed as unskilled laborers. They found
employment on the railroads, in lumber mills and salmon canneries, in
mines and on farms, and in domestic service. But they soon showed a
keen propensity for owning or leasing land. The Immigration Commission
found that in 1909 they owned over sixteen thousand acres in
California and leased over one hundred and thirty-seven thousand.
Nearly all of this land they had acquired in the preceding five years.
In Colorado they controlled over twenty thousand acres, and in Idaho
and Washington over seven thousand acres each. This acreage represents
small holdings devoted to intensive agriculture, especially to the
raising of sugar beets, vegetables, and small fruits.
The hostility which began to manifest itself against the Japanese
especially in California brought that State into sharp contact with
the Federal Government. In 1906 the San Francisco authorities excluded
the Japanese from the public schools. This act was immediately and
vigorously protested by the Japanese Government. After due
investigation, the matter was finally adjusted at a conference held in
Washington between President Roosevelt and a delegation from
California. This incident served to re-awaken the ghost of Mongolian
domination on the Pacific coast, for it occurred during the notorious
regime of Mayor Schmitz. Labor politics were rampant. Isolated
instances of violence against Japanese occurred, and hoodlums, without
fear of police interference, attacked a number of Japanese
restaurants. Political candidates were pledged to an anti-Japanese
policy.
In 1907 the two governments reached an agreement whereby the details
of issuing passports to Japanese laborers who desired to return to the
United States was virtually left in the hands of the Japanese
Government, which was opposed to the emigration of its laboring
population. As a consequence of this agreement, passports are granted
only to laborers who had previously been residents of the United
States or to parents, wives, and children of Japanese laborers
resident in America. Under authority of the immigration law of 1907,
the President issued an order (March 14, 1907) denying admission to
"Japanese and Korean laborers, skilled or unskilled, who have received
passports to go to Mexico, Canada, Hawaii and come therefrom" to the
United States.
Anti-Japanese feeling was crystallized into the alien land bill of
California in 1913. So serious was the international situation that
President Wilson sent Mr. Bryan, then Secretary of State, across the
continent to confer with the California legislature and to determine
upon some action that would at the same time meet the needs of the
State and "leave untouched the international obligations of the United
States." The law subsequently passed was thought by the Californians
to appease both of these demands.[49] But the Japanese Government made
no less than five vigorous formal protests and filled a lengthy brief
which characterized the law as unfair and intentionally discriminating
and in violation of the treaty of Commerce and Navigation entered into
in 1911. While anti-Japanese demonstrations were taking place in
Washington, there was a corresponding outbreak of anti-American
feeling in the streets of Tokyo. On February 2, 1914, during the
debate on a new immigration bill, an amendment was proposed in the
House of Representatives, at the instigation of members from the
Pacific coast, excluding all Asiatics, except such as had their entry
right established by treaty. But this drastic proposal was defeated by
a decisive vote.
The oriental question in America is further complicated by the fact
that since 1905 some five thousand East Indians have come to the
United States. Of these the majority are Hindoos, the remainder being
chiefly Afghans. How these people who have lived under British rule
will adapt themselves to American life and institutions remains to be
seen.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 45: _Chinese Immigration_, p. 402.]
[Footnote 46: _Chinese Immigration_, p. 265.]
[Footnote 47: So intense was the feeling in the West that at this time
a letter purporting to have been written by James A. Garfield, the
Republican candidate, favoring unrestricted immigration, was published
on the eve of the Presidential election (1880). Though the letter was
shown to be a forgery, yet it was not without influence. In California
Garfield received only one of the six electoral votes; and in Nevada
he received none. In Denver, where only four hundred Chinese lived,
race riots occurred which cost one Chinaman his life and destroyed
Chinese property to the amount of $50,000.]
[Footnote 48: Wong Wing _vs_. U.S., 163 U.S. 235.]
[Footnote 49: The Alien Land Act of May 19, 1913, confers upon all
aliens eligible to citizenship the same rights as citizens in the
owning and leasing of real property; but in the case of other aliens
(_i.e._ Asiatics) it limits leases of land for agricultural purposes
to terms not exceeding three years and permits ownership "to the
extent and for the purposes prescribed by any treaty."]